


truth.

by scoundrelhan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, kind of???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 02:58:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoundrelhan/pseuds/scoundrelhan
Summary: He is so tired.





	

he is so tired, he is so tired of this lie, there is no fun it, only self-punishment, like a perpetual, violent lashing by his own hand and he wants to reveal himself as the fraud he is.  
  
the truth: sherlock holmes is as human as they come, a slave to sentiment.  
  
god, all they do is pity him, shake their heads with a sad smile and say, “poor man, he just doesn’t understand.” but they are blind, always will be, they don’t see, they don’t know, even when it’s right under their noses. except molly, she has always seen right through him, and he has always looked right past her, and her eyes aren’t pitying, they are drowning in empathy and he wants to scream in her face, make her look away so he doesn’t have to face this. he wants to go back to the flat, and talk to a ghost of the past, and pretend like nothing is real, nothing has changed, and that nothing ever will.  
  
another truth: sherlock holmes is a fool. sherlock holmes is the biggest idiot of them all.

the worst of it is he let this happen, he saw the abyss and walked right off the edge, had suggested takeout instead of shoving his emotions into the guillotine of practiced logic and ending everything right then and there on the wet pavement. how could he have? he might not know a damn thing about the mathematics of the stars, but when he looks at john watson, he sees a sun, sees the center around which he turns, and sherlock will always be caught in his grounding orbit.

a secret: sherlock holmes is in love.

he is, pathetically, irreversibly, in love with john watson, even though, now, he understands that john watson will never love him back, not that way, not in this life. he pretends to like mary because john likes - loves, he loves her - mary, but it’s hard to pretend, because he really does, even though he hates to admit it, find her to be one of the few tolerable people in this horrible cesspool of a country. she’s quick, and never backs down, and doesn’t even so much as blink when sherlock gets nasty with his deductions. his perceptions have always been a tool, a sharp one, and he knows he is acting like a child when he attacks the wrinkles on her dress, or the frown lines between john’s eyebrows. he does it but he hates himself for it. he hates himself, period.

he wonders how john can not understand. how he can sit there, and smile, and leave sherlock at his - their, it will always remain as theirs no matter how far john runs - door every night, and not understand what he is doing. what he is leaving behind. john doesn’t leave, sometimes, but that is worse. it’s like a knife being slowly pushed into the flesh of his abdomen watching john stuff his face with greasy chinese and listen to sherlock inform him of all the cases he’s solved in his absence. he makes them extravagant, stretches the truth more than john’s old, now inactive blog till there’s nothing to stretch and he’s just making an ass out of himself but john doesn’t call him on his bluffs. he just laughs, and smiles, and looks properly shocked at all the right times and gives him a quick hug on the way out the door with empty promises they both know he can’t keep, and leaves sherlock standing there, doomed to the roaring silence of his isolation.

mycroft and lestrade call, and sherlock ignores them most of the time because they are so transparent, open books, and sherlock gets tired of reading the same stanzas over and over again. he gives in every once in awhile because even the great sherlock holmes gets lonely. and he is, that is, very lonely. he lets himself admit that, lets the reality of it stick to him like sewage, reeking and repelling. the great sherlock holmes has grown soft and human.

john’s never had to tell him a thing, and yet, he is the greatest mystery sherlock’s had the pleasure of attempting to solve. he never wants to. he’s given up so much of john already. he never wants to close this case, even if it’s like swallowing lava, white hot and unbearable. he turns over the evidence he’s collected through the years, the little details that should be entirely useless and mundane, but mean the world. everything about john watson is important. he’s yet to find something that isn’t.

sherlock tries not to feel the sick, twisted happiness that roots itself in his chest when john’s visits increase, when it’s clear they stem from something to do with mary. john’s never been a particularly tactile person, ever the reserved soldier, but his hands are always finding sherlock, more than before. a warm palm on his shoulder. a brush of a finger. his shoulder pressed into sherlock’s in the back of a cab. a knee under a table. sherlock drinks it all in, starves for it, begs for it in his silent way, because even now, he cannot ask for what he wants. he doesn’t know if he ever can, but john always obliges, albeit unknowingly. he forgets his coat on the back of his chair, and sherlock stares at it for the entire night, wondering, and thinking, and wondering some more. he wonders what mary thinks when john stays out too late, falls asleep sprawled out on display on the couch, wedding band forgotten on the end table amongst an ocean of case files and photographs. he wonders about that, too, how john can forget something that he claims is so sacred. he wonders, until his thoughts turn self-indulgent, and plain selfish, and he is left feeling disgusted with himself as usual.

he doesn’t have to say it. sherlock doesn’t want him to, but john is a man of tradition, so he still does, and sherlock tries to hate him for his pedestrian rituals. _mary’s pregnant_ , he announces, smiling wide and bright. he smiles like a sun. sherlock is on fire before he can turn away. _congratulations_ , sherlock says to the foggy window, and plays his violin as loud as can, douses himself in the sad, sad chords of a piece john will never be able to recognize, and waits until john’s footfalls disappear before he lets himself finally, finally, slip beneath the violent waves of everything unsaid.

the days stretch into weeks, and sherlock hardly eats, or sleeps. he is trying his best to replace his existence with cases, any case, anything to keep him distracted. mrs. hudson watches him with sad eyes he pretends not to see, except he sees everything. a blessing and a curse, as they say, but it has never been a blessing to him. if he could rip out his eyes, tear them apart, he would do it in a heartbeat, but he's a coward. he is weak. lestrade tries to stop him on his way out after solving a double homicide in less than forty eight hours - open and shut, really, an embarrassment - but sherlock shakes him off with trembling hands. his mind is running itself into the ground, a runaway train, but he ignores its screaming, screeching breaks, and keeps going because he doesn’t want to know what will happen if he stops. if he stops, he will have to look at himself, and right now, he is fine being lost in the ocean. his knowledge is all he has now. it is all anyone ever wants anyway.

there are so many secrets sherlock has that aren’t really secrets anymore. they’ve just become things he won’t say. john has to know. he has to. it is wholly impossible for him not to, but sherlock refuses to say it. he can’t say it. his mouth won’t let it happen. deliriously, stupidly, he thinks that john will follow him back to the flat after one of their few and far between shared cases, and it will be as if the whole year has been a dream, and the record will start up again, fresh and new and unscratched. it doesn't. he wants to forget it all, forget everything, forget all the reasons they shouldn't and shove all the reasons they should into the warm light of the fireplace, spill it all on the rug for them to lie upon, finally bare, except the fire is dead, and john is lying in a far away bed in the arms of someone who is decidedly not him.

the silence swallows him whole.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been going through my docs/drafts and this has been sitting forgotten for a long time. Thought I'd set it free. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
